Today's Dream

[felicula]

In a room somewhat like the living room from our North Street apartment, mechanchaos and I were discussing problems we were having with some sort of conglomeration of a credit card and insurance coverage. We'd subscribed to this thing a month prior, but had yet to have them activate it. Now we'd gotten a bill for the next month.

The last light from the winter sunset had faded into a rich, clear, navy blue. I was preparing to call and give the customer service representative a piece of my mind. The room was much brighter than our living room had been, and it was decorated more office-like. I also had the sense that we were situated up in a high-rise building, rather than the second storey our apartment had been located on.

I think I managed to reach someone on the other line. As dreams do, the scene faded. It was the same room, but no longer in the high-rise. It was in a mansion. I was no longer myself, but someone from the reality into which I'd stepped.

The house was owned by a wealthy, business-oriented materialist. He liked to have a variety of people living there at any time to give the place a lively feel. He took any excuse to throw a party when he wasn't away on business trips. The place was rumored to be haunted, but I didn’t know whether I believed it or not.

The main level was grand for holding events, with large ceilings and a room with windows all around out back. The view was extraordinary. The mansion was built set into a hill next to a tumbling creek. The back yard sloped away, backing up on a lake. Where the creek met the lake, the water splashed over, around, and across some rocks. Outdoors from the sunroom was a deck with built in seats and an inset hot tub, all in view of the creek and the lake.

The area was wooded with older trees, enough to shade most of the yard, but spaced out enough not to impede the view.

The second floor was mostly comprised of rooms that I spent little time in. There were the bedrooms of some of my housemates, as well as the home office of the owner, which was the white room of earlier.

The third floor was much smaller, mostly attic space toward the front of the house, but having another sunroom to the back. This was the bedroom I shared with a slender woman. For some reason, the room was always messy, no matter how often we tidied it up. The expensive clothing often strewn about the floor. Like the one below, this room had paned windows to three directions. Each window had its own blinds, but we mostly left them open since we were up high enough. It was only lit by one or two pull-string bare light bulbs, which threw a musty emphasis on the peeling but mostly age-bare woodwork.

The mansion had a bit of a fourth floor too. Like the third, it was mostly attic space, but up there I discovered a small porch. It had a solid roof, and was lit with an outdoor light. Instead of windows, it opened straight to the air. Part of the floor was cheap, nubbly carpet in an indistinct blue. The other part of it was grating akin to a fire escape. As if originally intended as a fire escape, it had a metal railing, and stairs that went back and forth to the ground. The siding on the house side was dirty white with deep green trim.

I spent a lot of time up there. Somehow my very presence meant that it too had the tendency to become spontaneously disorderly, some of my things finding there way up there even if I hadn’t brought them there.

Once, I was reading up on the fourth floor porch, and there was a knock on the door. Upon my assent, I was joined by an older man. He had a somewhat supernatural, ethereal aura to him. It made me uneasy, but something about him made me curious. We spent long hours talking. The unease I felt was battled by the familiarity and caring that was growing by our camaraderie. Neither won out, but I felt lonely if he didn’t join me when I’d go up there for quiet time.

On one of the owner’s visits back, he took a shine to me. He started inviting me down to important dinners, and asking me to join in the parties more publicly. I was naturally reserved, though. It felt like I was only an accessory to the house. I think I had money and connections of my own, for which I’d been asked to live there in the first place.

I don’t know why he was suddenly interested, but he began to try to woo me with expensive gifts and poetic flattery. I didn’t give up my long conversations with the ethereal man. Still, he began to visit much less frequently as the materialistic man publicized his interest in me.

At one point, the ethereal man didn’t visit for an entire week. I felt his absence acutely. I didn’t understand why the conversations were so important to me. I just felt lonely and sad, even though I still felt somewhat uneasy when he was around.

The owner of the mansion asked me to marry him. I didn’t know what to do. Publicly, I was expected to say yes. I didn’t love him, though. I didn’t know what I felt about the more ethereal man, but I felt that it wouldn’t be fair to him to say yes. Still, the one I missed stayed away. Each passing day further eroded the confidence built by my friendship with him. I went to the parties, but it was like I was only half there. Of course, I’d profit from the business side of marrying the materialistic man, as would he. It all seemed hollow, though.

Finally, I caved in. I hadn’t seen my friend in so long, I wasn’t sure if he was ever coming back. I said yes. My fiancée outdid himself with the reception. The food, the clothing, and the decorations dwarfed the ceremony. In contrast, the ceremony was short, aspiritual, and impersonal. We stood with a justice of the peace, and exchanged rings and signatures on a prenuptial contract. It was more a ritualized business venture than a wedding. All around us the party raged, most not even taking notice of what was taking place at the desk in the center of the main hall.

Even before all the overnight guests had left, my new husband was off on a business trip. The blur from the photographs taken hadn’t even faded from my eyes. One by one, the guests left. In comparison, the regular occupants of the mansion seemed sparse.

On the desk in his office, he’d left a small nod to my existence. There was a short note detailing travel arrangements for me to be a guest on the set of a Harry Potter movie. To by honest, it was an enjoyable trip. The actors and crew seemed to have a lot of fun behind the scenes. One actor even asked to interview me on home video.

It turned out that wasn’t all he had in mind. After the interview, he set the camera down. His charismatic gaze held my eyes as he approached me and kissed me. Though I enjoyed the kiss, it was a sudden reminder of how hollow my marriage to the materialist felt. I knew then that I loved my friend, that I’d made the wrong choice. I went back home with that on my mind.

Back at the mansion, life went on as usual. I’d been away just long enough to be appreciative of the number of housemates. A handful of us decided to de-stress by relaxing in the hot tub. The day was overcast, but the water was warm. We watched as some local folks splashed and swam in the water of the creek. I realized that the only woman among them was Sarah T., a friend I’d lost touch with several years ago. She looked up at me only for a moment, then turned away.

She faded from the dream, as did all but my roommate from the hot tub. She and I got along reasonably well, and I’d decided to still share the room while the materialist was away. The evening was approaching, and I was feeling a little nervous about the people in the water. She expressed the same discomfort in the way they were looking at us.

They were likely college age, all smooth-chested men who looked like they spent a little time at the gym, and a lot of time at a fraternity house. Even-featured, but in a normal, plain sort of way, they seemed like cookie-cutter copies of one another but for minor differences. As if they were slightly intoxicated, they started to approach, calling out rude comments and ribald humor. The closer they approached, the more it seemed something was just plain wrong with them. I don’t know how we evaded them, but we managed to get inside. I think we made fun of them and pushed them away since we were on the deck and they weren’t.

The whole atmosphere in the house felt somehow altered. We were nervous and agitated. We made it up to our room, which was messy again. She got upset and began to kick and throw her clothing into a pile to be put away. Night had fallen, and I realized that if we went too close to the windows, they’d be able to catch sight of us. I tried to figure out a way to close the shades without being seen.

I managed to close some of them by throwing random things at the operative portion of the blinds. The rest, I had to creep up, staying low, then dart up to close it. One window I took a little too long on, long enough to see a cemetery glowing to the left of the house, where there hadn’t been one in daylight.

Meanwhile, my roommate was chattering away about expensive clothes and fearing theft and rape. Her rant took on a more hysterical tone uncharacteristic of her. She pointed out that each and every article of clothing had some change to it from the morning. A small logo was missing. Colors were changed. A slogan altered. Something was just not right. It seems that somehow we ended up crossing realities by interacting with the fraternity guys. I showed her the cemetery through the blinds, and she gets even more upset.

While we were looking, I saw two middle-aged men wandering between the cemetery and the creek. It feels like they saw one of us. Slowly, they walk toward the mansion. I retreated upstairs to try to close off the stairway that could let them in from above. Morning was approaching. The sky was the intense blue that reminds me I'd been up all night.

Getting out onto the porch, the first thing I notice is the mess of my things. I have no idea how I could fortify the place, let alone how to get my things back down to the room. There was a knock on the door, like the one that had preceded my first meeting of the ethereal man. Before I could open it, a slender, wrapped package slid under the door. In it were a book and a note from my friend telling me that he cared, and that the book would help.

Opening to the introduction, I read the first line out loud. I felt a surge of energy inside me and knew that it was magic. I could change things, but only small things at a time. First I changed the railing to the same metal grid as the outer side of the floor. Next, I added a gate, then a lock. I used the magic to clean up the mess, one pile at a time, then used it to replace the dirty paint on the trim and molding with fresh white paint, panel by panel.

I’d forgotten that there were two men approaching. I felt the wiggle and groan of the metal steps. Soon, they were climbing over the gate I’d created. I realized that the magic had worn off. I opened the book and read another random line. It was back. First I commanded them to have no balls. Then I commanded their penises to disappear. From the astounded horror on their faces, I could tell it had worked. I used the distraction to push them over the railing to their doom.

At this point, I woke up and hurried to jot down an outline of the dream. It was about 8 in the morning. I know I’d woken up briefly when the first alarm went off at 7. Today followed the same pattern, my most memorable dream being one after I’d already woken up and fallen back asleep.

Even though this dream ended on a rather nightmarish note, it was more entertaining than anything else. Something about not being me in the dream lent it more of an adrenaline rush than a run for my life. Though I was the character, it was just a character.